Archive

There is a good news for all the PSN subscriber out there. It is possible that Sony might allow you to change your PSN names once. This is one thing that most of the PSN users have been thinking since its launch. Many of us just random names while subscribing without realizing that there won’t be any option to change it later. Thanks to that most of us are stuck with really stupid names. But, the latest reports tell us that Sony might finally allow the players to change their PSN account names.

The news comes from a website called PushSquare that got it hands on a survey which was conducted by none other than Sony. The content of the survey suggested that Sony might be collecting opinions for adding a new feature in PSN which allows the users to change their PSN IDs. Not only that, it also suggested that the feature may allow the users to change their IDs not only once but multiple times and that too for free.

But it does not mean that you will be able to change it whenever you want. Instead, we can expect this option to get enabled every 6 months. Also, in case the user does like the new ID and wish to get it reverted, they will have to contact the Sony’s customer support.

There was no official disclosure from PushSquare whether this change will be free or the player will have to pay some amount to get it done. If we look at the competitor, Xbox One, the company allows the players to change their ID for free just once after which the players need to pay some amount for the change.

However, Sony has still not commented on the information by PushSquare and we should still be not so sure about it. This is because the Survey also said that, “We can’t be sure whether this feature will be added or not, but we can be sure your opinions on the matter will be heard. “

We can expect Sony to add this feature soon because Xbox already has it. However, we can expect them to charge a fee for that. Many players have already been requesting the company for that and when asked to Shawn Layden, a PS executive, last year, he said that won’t be able to answer any question the PSN name change topic.

What do you think about the PSN name change? Should it be allowed and if it comes, should Soncy charge the player for that? Share your opinions with us in the comments section below.

If you are also a Metal Gear Solid fan like me and most of the other gamers, there is a good news for you all. Konami has announced a new Metal Gaer Solid Survive Beta Release next week. The beta release will be for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 consoles, and PC. With beta release, they mean that it will be some kind of trial for the PC gamers to have a taste of it for the first time.

We also have the dates of the trial with us. The PC trial is going to begin on 16th of February and will end on 18th of February.

There is still not a lot of information out there about the beta release but we know that it is going to feature three missions for the PC gamers. These three missions are set up on two different maps. For people looking for online play, you can play with up to 4 players in the same maps during the beta period. There are going to be some daily missions offered to the players but that will be optional to play. However, if you take part in the mission are going to receive a nameplate with “FOXHOUND” written on it, a bandana and a Metal Gear Rex Head accessory. All these rewards can be equipped by the player instantly in the game.

Konami has already released a beta version of the game last month in January. However, that beta was totally exclusive for PS4 and Xbox One users. There is no detail about the maps and the missions that the company is going to offer in the Beta release, whether they re going to be the same one we saw in the last beta, or not.

In case you have been waiting for Metal Gear Solid for your PC and are definitely going to take the beta trial, we want to recommend you few things so that you are totally prepared for the beta and don’t face any issue while trying it. First of all, you are going to require a strong internet connection on your PC. You should know that the final game that you are going to get will include micro-transactions. It is a paid game, still, you might have to pay for some items which are available as in-app purchases. You will also require a good mouse and headphones to play in co-op mode.

This is the first game which has been released for PS4, Xbox One and now PC, after we saw the amazing Metal Gear game from Hideo Kojima. Also, the game should have got released in 2017, but the company decided to delay the release because of E3. We will be back with more details on Metal Gear Solid Survive and the beta release later. Stay tuned with us for more information on the latest game and other gaming updates.

With the advancement in technology the risk of your personal information getting into wrong hands increases as well. We have already seen some latest risks in the last few years from which big companies like Apple even were not even able to escape. In case you think you are safe, the problem is as deep as the processor in your CPU. Right now the Silicon Valley is suffering from two such vulnerabilities named, ”Spectre” and “Meltdown”.

This time the hackers are trying to get access to your private information via different processors coming from the ARM, Intel as well as AMD. Google discovered these vulnerabilities last years, but it was revealed and pushed by them publicly recently. The Spectre and the Meltdown take advantage of the same vulnerabilities to grab the personal information from your system’s memory directly. The secure information that they can get is your password, the application information as well as the encryption keys.

The biggest thing here is that almost every laptop, smartphone, PC, and tablets are under the range, doesn’t matter your device is running on-chip made from manufactured by any company. Even the operating systems cannot save you this time, as the vulnerability is not at all dependent on it. However, in order exploit the vulnerability, the hacker needs a specific set of pre-requisite which includes a malware running on your device as well. If you have got a good antivirus software installed, it can catch any malware and delete it before it does it work. Still, the danger is not just theoretical, a hacker could achieve it.

The problem does end here as well. We said, the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities are related to the processor chip, that means it can even affect a lot of other gadgets as well apart from our personal devices. We could face serious problems if hackers find their way into processors used in running data centers and cloud servers. Some big names like Amazon Web Service, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure could also get affected by the vulnerabilities. If the condition as optimum, the users can even steal data and information from other cloud users.

The good news here is that companies have already been working on the updates and patches to fix these vulnerabilities. Let us talk a bit in more detail about Meltdown and Spectre in the further section.

Meltdown

Meltdown is the vulnerability that badly affects the Intel-manufactured chips. This is because the processor makes use of speculative execution tactics that works fairly aggressively. Also, the speculative execution allows the CPU access to kernel memory as well.

“On affected systems, Meltdown enables an adversary to read the memory of other processes or virtual machines in the cloud without any permissions or privileges, affecting millions of customers and virtually every user of a personal computer.”

If you do not know much about speculative execution, it makes the chip to predict the future move of the process so that it can work faster than normal. If it has the hint about the algorithm of a particular program, it will start working out its own equation to get early results even before the program asks it to actually work on it. Let us give you an example. Let’s say you have a function that does computation A if the condition is true else it computes the code B. Now, the chip does both the computations in parallel even before it knows whether the condition is true or false. Once the condition is determined, the CPU has already done some of the computation and thus takes less time in producing the result. In another case, let’s say that the CPU knows that the user uses a particular function frequently, it might pick up solving the function in its idle time so that it knows the outcome and next time the user runs the same function, it could give out the result immediately. You don’t even ask the CPU to solve the function still it does to make the processing faster.

The processor does check for the invalid memory access, but that occurs after speculative execution. So, all the invalid branches it gets do not get executed, but there is a possibility that the hacker can try to extract data from these blocked branches as well as the affected cached blocks.

The company is trying to fix it via various OS patches in Linux, Windows, and MacOS. The official PDF on the Meltdown vulnerability says that the patches are working fine on various operating systems for a start. However, the problem cannot be fully fixed from the software patches.

Spectre

Meltdown is not that scary as Spectre is. The Meltdown vulnerability can be avoided in one or the other way using the software patches. But Spectre is way more serious than that. It is a name that is given to the attacks that “involve inducing a victim to speculatively perform the victim’s confidential information via a side channel to the adversary.”

Unlike Meltdown, Spectre has a completely different method of attacking the information. Using the Spectre vulnerability the hacker can make any program running on your PC export some of the running data that could be even confidential. However, pulling it out takes a lot more information on the inner workings of the program on which user is working on. But the hackers can inflict any processor out there running on any device.

Why are Meltdown and Spectre Vulnerabilities so Dangerous?

Both the vulnerabilities are really very dangerous from the privacy point of view. A person can just write a piece of code on a website and then use the Spectre vulnerability to trick the internet browser and transfer your username and password to the hacker. The Meltdown, on the other hand, can be used by the hackers to view you’re as well as other user’s data even on the virtual servers that are hosted on the hardware running on the same processor. If this is made possible, it would be disastrous for the cloud company and the users.

The Spectre and Meltdown Software Patches

It would be right to say that the main vulnerabilities lie in the fundamental hardware level and is very hard to fix using different software patches. Still, most of the wonders have released different software security updates that could handle the problems in the better way to make them secure and non-vulnerable to the hackers. There was a KAISER patch that was developed by the Linux security last year which had a side effect, which turns out to be the solution to Meltdown problem as well. Looking at it, a lot of cloud vendors have already patched their servers with similar updates. The companies that are constantly making advancement on it include Apple, Google, Intel, and Microsoft. In addition to that, we also recommend you to keep your security system updated as well as the internet browsers.

In case you are using old systems like Windows XP or old smartphones running on old Android version, your device might not be patched. Obviously, it is impossible to patch each and every smartphone in the world.

Patch Update

The first patch was released by Microsoft on January 11, 2018, where they patched most of the systems running Windows 7 as well as the Internet Explorer and Edge browsers.

Next was Apple to come up with a patch for Macs. It was released for the MacOS, tvOS as well as iOS operating system and Safari browser on January 3rd, 2018.

Google also released a list of Chromebooks which have been patched with the new update and that which will be patched soon. They also released another list containing models that won’t be receiving the patch.

The Firefox developers have released a patch for their browser on January 23, but it is still in the beta phase.

As for the Android users, if you are using a phone from Samsung or Google, your devices are mostly patched or soon with be patched. We can’t say much about the other manufacturers. It is possible that most of the Android devices might remain unpatched.

Does the new Patch Update affect the Performance?

The patches that the machines have been receiving an alert of mitigating the vulnerabilities by altering the way your system uses speculative execution or disabling its use. It also affects the way your system has been using the caching feature by the hardware. Well, the speculative execution was one of the features that make your system work fast. And without it and altering its normal working reduces the performance of your system by 10 to 30 percent.

Where people are having a lot of expectations from the big tech gaming giants like Nintendo, Sony etc., Nvidia, on the other hand, had other things in mind. They are expected to make it big at the ongoing CES 2018 with their cloud streaming, a self-driving car technology, and artificial intelligence. However, we are not going into all those futuristic technologies but into what they have planned for the game lovers in 2018.

Their recent success has given a huge boost in trying out their hands in other futuristic technologies without leaving their roots, their graphics cards business, behind. Instead, they are already ready to bring out new products like huge PC monitors, cloud gaming, and super gaming laptops later this year. Now, without wasting any more time, let us look into what we are expecting from Nvidia in the near future.

Huge Gaming Screens

It is almost impossible to have great gaming experience in small screens. Huge gaming screens are very important and that is understood by most of the players out there. And that has also been something Nvidia has been focusing on. We got to see three huge gaming monitors with big BFG-D screens. In case you don’t know what BFG-D stand for, it is “Big Format Gaming Display” which are specially manufactured keeping all the high-end gaming need s and requirements in mind. The CEO of the company, Jensen Huang focused on these initials during the announcement especially because the initials according to game “Doom” stands for “Big Fu**ing Gun”.

AS we said before, the screens are huge and could not be called Televisions because you will not find the normal TV functionalities in it. With the refresh rate of 120Hz, they offer Ultra HD 4 K resolution along with 100 nits of brightness and HDR color reproduction. There was a huge difference in the image when Nvidia showcased a non-HDR image and then an HDR version of the same image in the monitors.

Almost every gaming monitor coming out without G-sync technology embedded in it is waste. Well, that is not the case with the new Nvidia monitors as all of them feature G-Sync so that anything you play on the monitor has an optimum constant refresh rate. The 4K resolution along with amazing refresh rate makes sure that the players do not encounter any tearing or lag whole playing heaviest games on it.

However, there are other competitors out there as well and it is not going to be easy for them to penetrate the current market. But they are not going to sell these monitor under their branding, instead, these monitor will be sold by HP, Acer, and Asus. The basic configuration of these monitors will remain the same but the sellers can definitely add their brandings, speakers and other design customizations as per their wish. The company has not revealed the base price of the monitors but you can expect them in the latter half of the year.

Cloud Streaming

We have been hearing about Nvidia working on some kind of Cloud gaming technology, but till now we didn’t know what it was. They actually want to bring the ability to stream as well as play high definition games through their highly backed and powered servers from any kind of new and powerful to old and slow laptops. They already have a cloud game streaming service available but it is only for the Mac users. It is known as GeForce Now and is available for free in its Beta version. Now Nvidia plans to bring a similar but better version of it for all the PC gamers.

There is no doubt in the fact that Nvidia will require a lot of resources for it since they are going to allow hundreds of thousands of players to play different game titles on the server, and all that at the same time. They will have to do a lot in order to achieve that. Not only they will have to construct a lot of data centers that could handle that amount of load, but also they will have to geo-locate these data centers at different parts of the world so that the players do not face lags, latency or any other problems while playing the games.

If they make it possible, it is going make a huge impact on the gaming world. But there is still no word from Nvidia about the availability of this service and how much is it going to cost. All the gamers can do now is wait for it to get ready.

Nvidia Max-Q Laptops

Nvidia showcased a new design for laptops with the name Max-Q. The new design concept is what many other brands have been trying to achieve since years. Nvidia is putting a lot of focus on bringing out notebooks that could that could take advantage of high-end graphics cards and excellent gaming performance while maintaining very thin and sleek body.

The whole idea is to bring the power of a big huge laptop into thinner machines. The motive behind this is very simple and that is an advancement. Till when are we going to buy heavy thick laptops to fulfill our gaming needs. After trying few of them, we very able to play some of the latest games in their full graphics settings without any kind of overheating and problems. Most of the gaming laptops that we see now days are mostly like VCR and not at all portable. So, if you want to game from your laptop, you have no other choice. With sleek designed gaming laptops, Nvidia wishes to bring those users on board who have been avoiding gaming laptops because of their size.

GeForce Experience

For those who have not used Nvidia graphics card before might not know what GeForce Experience suite is. GeForce Experience is a set of different programs that allow the gamers to manage all the gaming drivers for your card and to take screenshots in 3D of your favorite games. The players can also share these screenshots and recordings with your family and friends on social media.

In the latest CES 18, Nvidia introduced another feature in their software, the Freestyle feature. The Freestyle feature brings a lot of filters that the gamers can use while playing the game to change the visuals a bit. Different filters play with the color, brightness and sharpness settings to offer the best image to your eyes.

Nvidia released a powerful Pascal architecture based GPU named TITAN X back in the month of July 2016. That GPU promised the users around 11 Teraflops of computing performance. However, earlier this year, they enhanced the performance of this GPU and increased its compute performance to 12 Teraflops. Not only that, they also promised a GPU with the name Titan V, based on the all-new Volta architecture by the end of this year. And it looks like; they are ready to fulfill the promised with the recently announced Nvidia TITAN V Graphics Card.

Nvidia made the announcement at the Conference Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems event held in the Long Beach, California. As we have already mentioned before, this new GPU from Nvidia is based on the Volta architecture taking the compute performance figures to a whole new level. If we listen to the company, they have actually redesigned the Tensor cores of the exiting GPU, which then feature floating-point data paths as well as independent integer paths, increasing the performance by 9 times when compared to the previous TITAN Xp GPU. The newly announced GPU offers a computing speed of 110 Teraflops for Deep learning and 14 teraflops of Single-precision performance.

The Nvidia TITAN V was announced by the CEO and founder of the company, Jensen Huang at the NIPS conference and features 12nm GPU architecture along with latest Nvidia technological additions. You get excellent energy efficiency in the GPU as well.

Jensen Huang said, “Our vision for Volta was to push the outer limits of high-performance computing and AI. We broke new ground with its new processor architecture, instructions, numerical formats, memory architecture and processor links”. “With TITAN V, we are putting Volta into the hands of researchers and scientists all over the world. I can’t wait to see their breakthrough discoveries.”, he added.

Talking about the GPU a bit more in detail, the TITAN V is based on the GV100 architecture that includes 320 texture units and 5120 CUDA cores. The number of cores is same as in the Tesla V100 GPU unit but there are additional 640 Tensor cores added to the Volta GPU. The GPU can handle up to 110 teraflops of computing performance which has been developed keeping the deep learning algorithms and AI related algorithms in mind. The core has been clocked at 1200 MHz by the company which can be boosted up to 1455 MHz as well.

The Volta GPU is not the only thing that they are offering to the buyers. You also get a 12 GB HBM2 memory along with it. It is the first time any of the Nvidia graphics cards is featuring an HBM2 memory as well. This memory has a data transfer rate of 1.7 GB per second and a 3072-bit memory bus included, thus offing a total bandwidth of 652.8 GB per second. The total bandwidth is more than the TITAN Xp GPU but Nvidia has cut down the bus interface from 4096-bit to 3072 bit in the entire GPU. The RAM has also been decreased from 16 GB to 12 GB. You can do anything with this graphics card, play heavy games, do professional work, run Ultra HD movies and what not.

Talking about the design of the GPU, TITAN V has the same NVTTM cooler that we saw in the GeForce Pascal 10 graphics card series. There is only one difference in terms of looks, and that is the name which is etched on the front side of the GPU. TITAN V comes in a gold die-cast body made up of Aluminum containing a good vapor chamber cooling mechanism for providing the best thermal cooling possible. The DrMOS 16 Phase PCB included in it has the thermal monitoring as well as integrated real-time current monitoring capability as well.

Jeremy Antoniuk, the COO for Deep Cognition said that “As an NVIDIA Inception partner, we trust NVIDIA to deliver innovative solutions to the AI market. Today, their solutions further evolve to better support an important phase of AI development: experimentation,”. “With TITAN V and NGC, Deep Cognition’s Deep Learning Studio has built a powerful desktop solution for AI development, iteration, and training.”, he added.

There is a new update out for the latest Call of Duty: World War II. One of the best parts of the new COD is that it makes the Headquarter’s social space work as it used to be and was not working as expected till now.

Till now we were only able to experience the Headquarters in the solo experience since you were not able to compete for one on one and earn rewards just similar to other players out there. There were no loot boxes available to open till now in the one on one HQ experience. Before this update, you had to invite each and every player manually to join your HQ session in order to do such things, but it was not at all ideal situation for FPS lovers.

However, they have now released a new patch for the game which brings various fixes for the crashes of the server as well as other connectivity problems. The BAR weapon was very powerful before the update patch but now it has been nerfed and now you will face some more recoil while using it. There was another problem that the players faced where the screen would turn black if the host left in between the game.

The new patch for Call of Duty: WWII is available for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. More details on the patch update for PC will be revealed later. Get the full details of the update patch below:

Most of the new features are focused on improving the Multiplayer mode:

The crashes occurring in Xbox One and PlayStation4 are fixed

The connectivity issues with the server are resolved in new Call of Duty patch.

The issue where the users were prevented from entering the local play match when trying to connect the game without having an internet connection.

The glitch where the players were kicked out after the Public match to the lobby with the message “Lost connection to host” has been fixed.

The black screen issue has been fixed.

Some improvements have been made to the Leaderboard.

Sometimes the players were not granted 2XP even when notified, and sometimes they got 3XP, this issue has been fixed too.

HQ progression exploit fixes

In Scorestreak Training, the issue where the HQ accepts the invite of a backing out player is fixed.

Call of Duty: WWII was launched last week, and it’s already Christmas for COD fans who have played Call Of Duty since the beginning. And this time, no more running-on-the-wall it’s only boots-on-the-ground. Soldiers show up more individual and human, instead of looking like a few futuristic, cyber-mutant Marine. And since the soldiers' physical ability is limited, that they cannot sprint ​for a long time before tiring or leap longer than just a couple foot, the plan is presently a priority.

Call of Duty: WWII is about strategy, decision-making and weapon skill. But more or less, the new game goes back to World War 2 era. Fans are pleased about it, and it seems like the COD franchise is finally back on its track of what the developing team was famous for. Although, Call of Duty: World At War includes a much better campaign along with the zombies have been fresh afterward. While a return to its origins setting is appreciated, the entire thing still is a well-executed formula.

​The Gameplay

The secret, I think, is Sledgehammer’s commitment to going back to Call of Duty’s core. This doesn’t mean that it strives for realism or that it cuts back on preposterous action sequences, as this remains a Hollywood vision of WWII; there are set pieces which Michael Bay might have considered a bit much. Yet COD World War II puts gritty, fast-paced combat at the heart of everything while trying to give you the most definite feeling yet that you’re part of a platoon being tested to its limits. Sure it can be dumb, gung-ho and prone to uncomfortable shifts of tone, but it can also be powerful, emotive and thrilling.

This isn't about the presentation; it's more incredible because of the way the developing team has executed the entire game. This is easily the best-looking and most visceral Call Of Duty available, and while you've seen a number of those warfare battlefields earlier, you've never seen them quite like this.

​The Graphics

Ravaged buildings, rain-drenched woods and the shores and trenches of all Normandy have never looked so grim and realistic in any other games. For all of the discussion of 'boots on the floor,' it's more accurate to say 'boots in the sand' or 'tramping through the snow.' Not any o​f the previous Call Of Duty has received environments which feel and look so grounded in real-world locations. The environment in COD: WWII is from the real world which feels and look very realistic in the game.

​Characters and Plots

This time COD went back into the fundamental mechanics. You have a supporting cast of well-trained soldiers in your squad. Moreover, they directly assist you during combat based on your needs and performance. ​

​Drew Stiles ​ is equally helpful, he ensures you have enough grenades for the fighting sequence​

​William Pierson is a war-hardened, mean, rude and dispassionate officer played efficiently by Josh Duhamel ( reliving his Transformers characte), his eagle-eye skill with binoculars allows you to spot outlines of nearby enemies.

But this isn't about photorealism, but about a confident, dramatic approach. There is a sequence after the Battle of the Bulge in which you have to fight and survive in an icy area which looked more the "Band of Brothers" television series. Playing on PC, I was amazed and thrilled by the noise and atmosphere of the entire experience.And that's not the only factor which produces this kind of warfare vibe.

All these contributions and squad factor are tied to your health and cooldown as you kill enemies. This excellent squad communication and method of supply are gamified. But I think it's a creative and thrilling subject to bond with your squad and kill some enemies on the battlefield.

​Verdict

Pros

Cons

​Strong Campaign​

​Impressive Visuals

​Intense and Thrilling Gunplay

Strong Squad Communication

​Enemy Bullet Sponges

Few really new situations or ideas

The outcome isn't necessarily a stricter Call of Duty game. But it's the first in years at which I have not felt like an action movie fighter. You are right in the World War II era with merely a little bit extra care and caution which the past handful versions of Call of Duty didn’t have. But it’s certain that few maneuvers will surprise you, however, too the scripting and pacing give you a few tight situations and enough tiny scratches to maintain your heartbeat pace. It's fantastic at making the predictable exciting.

Last to last month Sony launched the private beta version of the update that was expected any time before the end of the year. Well, the wait has finally come to an end, since the PS4 5.0 update is now available for PS4 consoled all over the world. This new update is a mixture of many small as well as some big features. Its size is just 375 MBs and the company has made it mandatory for all the console owners. Well, you do not have to worry about updating it manually. Whenever you will turn on your PS4, and if the internet connectivity is available, the update will download itself automatically and install.

Talking about the new enhancements, first of all, Sony has updated the Friend List and included a lot of new tools increasing the management capabilities of the user. For example, now you can make your own separate private list of friends that are specific to a particular game like FIFA 18. By doing this, the player will also have an option to send a combined invite to all the player on your private list at one go. This new feature has replaced the “Favorite Groups” tab that is available in the previous version.

There are new additions to enhance the game streaming via PS4. Now the PS4 Pro users will be able to stream their game in full HD 1080p resolution and at 60 frames per second. Not to mention, you will need a really strong internet connection for that. In case you are a PlayStation VR users, you can now see the new incoming messages as well as the comments on it in the form of a broadcast in front of your eyes. There is another good news for PSVR users too, you now get 5.1 channel and 7.1 channel virtual surround sound support with PS4 5.0 update.

One big problem that most of the users complained about in the previous PS4 4.0 was that the main menu was very slow and consumed a lot of time. The company recognized this problem by updating the quick menu. When compared to the quick menu in the older version, the newer one has a lot more options like the progress of downloads, new invites etc.Another problem that the previous version had was the notifications which used to pop up in between while you are watching your favorite movie or show. Well, in the latest update, there is an option to disable the notification popups while you are enjoying your favorite media on PS4.

There has been a major change in the Parental Controls and they have been enhanced to a whole new “Family of PSN” level, Sony says. This new system is going to replace the old Master account and Subaccount system. Instead, there will e a Family Manager, who will be responsible for creating the other accounts. The new accounts could be given the role of Parent / Guardian, Child or Adult. Parents, as well as Guardians, will have the control over the restrictions and permissions of the Child’s account. Sony says that the parent can control “use of online features and communication with other players, set restrictions for games, restrict the use of the internet browser, and set spending limits for PlayStation Store.

In the Beta version which was released by Sony in the month of August, stated that in case the user is setting up is PS account for the first time, he will have to pay $0.50 as the one-time fee in order to verify that you are an adult. The release notes that came along with the update do not mention anything of such kind.

Given below are the PS4 5.0 final Update’s Patch Notes:

Main Features:

You can now add users of your PS4 as family members. This makes it easy to manage your child’s account information and to restrict PS4 features. To add family members, select (Settings) > [Parental Controls/Family Management].

As the family manager, you can set up your family.

Up to seven family members (including you) can be in your family and use online features.

Multiple adults can be in your family. The family manager can make other adults in the family parents or guardians. The family manager and family members who are parents or guardians can adjust parental controls for the children in your family.

You can configure parental control settings for each child. Using parental controls, you can restrict use of online features and communication with other players, set restrictions for games, restrict use of the Internet browser, and set spending limits for PlayStation Store.

You can configure parental controls anytime from your PC or smartphone.

You can now follow anyone, not just verified accounts. Select (Follow) on a person’s profile screen, and their activities and broadcasts will appear in [What’s New]. You automatically follow your Friends, but you have the option to unfollow them.

Recommendations for who to follow are now offered based on the games you play. Select (Friends) > (Follow).

You can now choose who can follow you and who can see your follow list. Select (Settings) > [Account Management] > [Privacy Settings], and then configure each setting.

(Custom Lists) has been added to (Friends). Create custom lists to easily organise your Friends and choose players to send messages or game invitations to.

For certain broadcasts, (Communities) now appears on the (Live from PlayStation) viewing screen. To access the broadcaster’s community, select (Communities).

You can now view (Notifications) on the quick menu.

The following languages have been added as system languages: Czech, Indonesian, Hungarian, Romanian, Vietnamese, Greek, Thai.

When broadcasting PlayStation VR gameplay, you can now see spectator comments on your VR headset screen.

Other Features:

For (Messages), screen layout has been improved, and the following features have been added.

You can now receive music that has been shared with you as a message. • Select the message to play the music.

Dell, one of the leaders in PC and laptop market has announced its latest gaming PCs and laptops in the country at an event held in Delhi recently. Four Laptops and one desktop were launched at the event- The Alienware 15 and 17, Inspiron 15 5000 and 15 7000 Gaming and the Alienware Aurora Desktop. All the new models will be available at Dell Exclusive Stores.

The Alienware 15’s big bro, the Alienware 17 comes with very similar hardware. But it’s bigger having a display size of 17.3-inch. Otherwise, everything else is same. Due to its bigger overall size it weighs more at 4.42kg. Both of these Alienware laptops come with Tobii eye-tracking software.

Moving from the Alienware to Inspiron Series, the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 will come with Windows 10 64-bit, up to a 15.6-inch full-HD Truelife LED-backlit On-Cell touch display (14-inch variant also available). The Inspiron 15 5000 will let you choose between Intel and AMD processors, it can have a very powerful and capable GPU– Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5 video memory, it can hold up to 32GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM, and up to a 512GB PCIe SSD. It weighs up to 2.55kg and will be available in Black color variant only.

Performance

The base model of Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming comes with Windows 10 64-bit, a 15.6-inch full-HD anti-glare LED-backlit display and is powered by an Intel Core i5-7300HQ quad-core processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 with 4GB GDDR5 video memory, 8GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM, and a 1TB 5,400RPM HDD. It weighs 2.65kg and will be available in Matte Black or Red color variants.

The last product announced is a desktop- The Alienware Aurora R6. The desktop’s base model comes with Windows 10 64-bit and is powered by Intel Core i5-7400 quad-core processor, coupled with 8GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti with 4GB video memory. There is 1TB HDD storage onboard.

Dell has also tied up with HTC in an exclusive partnership for a limited period to set up VR experience zones across 125 touch points.

After announcing the Dell Visor and its refreshed lineup of XPS and Inspiron hardware, the company today unveiled some new hardware as part of its gaming lineup for 2017 at the IFA Berlin. The hardware consists of the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 series gaming laptop, the refreshed Inspiron Gaming Desktop and the massive 34-inch Alienware 34 curved gaming monitor with their respective price tags.

The 7000 series Inspiron 15 gaming laptop packs-in the slightly older seventh-generation Intel quad-core CPUs along with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. While nothing has been confirmed yet, Dell may upgrade these to the eighth-generation processors a bit later.

There’s a dual fan system to keep the laptop cool and anti-glare display options that are available in 1080p and 4K resolutions, depending on the option you choose. Also available are Thunderbolt 3 ports and this laptop is also VR-ready for the Dell Visor along with the many other options available in the market.

Pricing of the Inspiron 15 7000 laptop starts from $999 for the base models and $1,499 for models with the high-end 4K configurations. The laptop will go on sale globally starting 12 September.

Moving from laptops to desktops, we have the Inspiron Gaming Desktop by Dell. Cosmetically, not much has changed, apart from the clear panel window on the side. The gaming desktop starts from $599 and will go all the way up to $1,249 for the VR-ready configurations.

Price

And where there’s a desktop, there has got to be a display. Dell announced the Alienware 34 Gaming Monitor that will be available in two options. The first model comes with a 3,440 x 1,440 resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate and is priced at $1,499. The second lower priced model sports a 2,560 x 1,880 with a 160Hz refresh rate and will be priced at $1,199. Both monitors will up on sale starting 30 August.

AOC has been into new for their new gaming products since quite few time. Now they have announced two more new gaming focused monitors in their Agon 3 monitor series. A fast, as well as accurate monitor, is very crucial for an HD gaming experience. And it looks like AOC has come up with these new monitors keeping high definition gaming experience in mind. One of them is a G-sync gaming monitor while the other one is a FreeSync 2 gaming monitor. The two AOC monitors are special since they offer a very little response time of 0.5 milliseconds.

For those who have very little idea how it matters, a normal TN panel has an average response time of 5 milliseconds. The notebooks that most of the people use possess IPS panels and they have a response time of around 30 to 60 millisecond.

However, the AOC monitors, with so little response time and with super high refresh rate and along with the sync technology, have emerged as two amazing options for the gamers to grab right away.Both the new AOC monitors spread 27 inches in diameter and feature a screen resolution of 2560 x 1440. Another best thing about them is that they are curved in design.

However, there are some minute differences in both the gaming monitors. One of the offers 144 Hz refresh rate along with FreeSync and HDR support for better color output. On the other hand, the better one feature refresh rate of 165 Hz and a VA panel for much better as well as accurate color detailing but does not features HDR.

But, there is one bad news. Both of these monitors will be launched next year. The company has given no official date, but looking at various sources, we can expect the monitor with FreeSync to hit the European market in April 2018. The consumers will have to pay around $715 or 600 Euro for it. While the other monitor which features G-Sync technology will be available in the month of May 2018 and consumers will have to pay $835 or 700 Euro for it.